We made history in Ohio…

#ourCOG

The historic Ohio state ministers’ meeting in Columbus this week resulted in several key points:

  1. There is an obvious momentum toward the future among our ministry.  How that will translate to a more missional and relationship based environment remains to be seen.
  2. The State Council proposal for Regional Communities and Regional Elders was widely accepted (Unanimously) and there seems to be an openness to this experiment to see if we can do relationships between churches and ministers in a BETTER way…
  3. There is a clear mandate for evangelism and church planting.  Winning souls must be and should be our highest priority.
  4. The leadership choices for Council and Youth/Discipleship seem to reflect a decision to mix both new and veteran leaders…some surprising new choices were made.
  5. We had a wonderful visit by the oldest two living State Overseers, Raymond Crowley and W. D. Watkins on Thursday night and they blessed our socks off.
  6. There was strong sentiment about the speeches about our proposal for Pastoral and Ministerial Care.  Words are words, but I think the Ohio community is up to something that could help.  Time will tell if we can match our rhetoric.
  7. Jan Wright hit the ball out of the park with the media presentations and the launch of www.ohiocog.com.  So proud of our team and all that is going on…so much to do but they are elevating excellence with their efforts!
  8. $2500 cash offering Thursday night for South America.  We are going to attempt to raise $400,000 for South America in this coming year…despite the economy guided by our belief that GOD OWNS ALL THE MONEY!
  9. The heavy work is still to come.  This week, we joined hands and officially accepted each other–in coming weeks, we have to decide on transition plans, appoint leadership teams, manage all the legal work in Columbus on the merger and prepare for our January launch of the IMAGINE CAMPAIGN.

Bottom line, the focus is souls…winning people to Jesus and if the merger does not bring more people to Jesus, does any of this really matter?

Your thoughts?

By ourCOG